Back Where I Belong

Day 102.. No flying, supplies running low, no water, resorting to hunting squirrels..


All jokes aside - it's been way too long since I've been off the ground. There was a glimmer of hope for Wellfleet last weekend until Ilya and I took a good look at the rain percentage. It's hard keeping busy during winter in Maine, even harder busying yourself with something that won't cause a season-ender and ruin the 2019 season before it even starts. Especially with WW Demo Days and a 3 day Mikey Barber clinic with my two favorite Russians coming up in 2 months and 24 days.. (but whos counting)


So how do you fill your free time in the arctic tundra and stay prepped for flying season? Work out, of course. My own personal agenda with it is mostly injury recovery and prevention. It's helped immensely with my shoulder. 2 years post surgery I've finally passed my pre-surgery max weight with all of my overhead press-type lifts. I reverted back to the lifting routines I did when I was competing and only focus on a couple muscle groups per day rather than the garbage full-body routine I was doing for the last 8 years. I also changed the food I eat and the portion sizes. It's working..


 

Another huge help: Quitting sugar and booze. Unless you actually look for it, you don't realize that sugar is in almost everything. There's natural sugars in fruit and such, that's not the type I'm talking about. That delicious, disgusting, processed shit that people love pouring into their morning coffee- that's the type. Studies have shown it triggers the same parts of the brain as cocaine and claim it to be just as addictive. Now I've never snorted coke, but I can attest that sugar is fucking addictive. Ilya jumped on board with scrapping sugar and booze as well, so we went through withdrawals and were cranky together. That's not a joke. We went through legitimate withdrawals, the stuff is poison. I'm not telling you to give up your vices, I don't care. I'm just saying it was a noticeable difference in how we felt, healed, looked, weighed, hell even our moods became so much more balanced out. (I'm still tweaked but I'm charming as fuck, ask anyone).

So back to beating the winter blues.. weightlifting, ah yes. Almost 15 years and I friggin still love working out to the point where I look forward to it all day. Don't ask me why or how, I have no idea. And doing it with joints that stay in place now is pretty awesome. I coddled my shoulder for almost two years up until a few months back. I was doing military presses and it was hurting my shoulder every rep. I wasn't even close to my max weight, got frustrated, and did a set of  push-presses. I heard a *pop*. My assumption is scar tissue broke loose because it was a floodgate for more range and strength without as much pain. It's still stiff and I don't have full range but it's a noticeable difference. Since then I have passed my PB on multiple lifts even from when I first started, so that's been pretty awesome.

This is probably the healthiest and strongest I've ever been, and it finally happened at the ripe old age of 31. The biggest obstacle is finally admitting to myself that something hurts and not just working through it, the revelation to which Ilya gets all the credit. Don't do that 'New Year, New Me' crap. Try to be awesome year round- do something healthy or challenging. It may require a legit lifestyle alteration, but it's totally worth it. Carpe the diem, bitches!

 

Reasoning

      This crazy flying journey began almost 19 years ago now. When I started my training I was watched very closely by everyone around me because I was so young. A lot of it was with skepticism. Most disregarded me, assuming I wouldn't last long. A rare few took the role of mentoring. I grew up in an incredible era at Morningside where my mentors were National and World comp pilots, and I was so lucky to have that. Every day of flying came with some type of lesson or guidance and helped shape me into the pilot that I am now.
      Every pilot goes through an evolution at their own pace and in their own order. I got my H2 and first mountain flights, learned to ridge soar, got my aerotow rating, learned how to thermal, joined my first competition, got my H3, got my H4 but never received it on paper the next spring and stopped flying not long after due to adulthood.
     After the 2001 Regionals and placing 3rd I was hooked and wanted to be a comp pilot. Not long after making that declaration, I crashed and dislocated my shoulder. Flying became a lot scarier to me and I became overly conservative. Some would call that positive, and I agree but only to a certain point. The crash stemmed from an error on my part while playing with a single surface after being in my UltraSport the entire prior season: I misjudged the crappy glide/penetration and didn't make the LZ. So now whenever I flew I would panic if I didn't have the LZ almost underneath me no matter what glider I was in. I was leaving lift and bailing early to come in to land fearing I wouldn't make it. Not necessarily a bad thing, being that it's a safe practice, but if you're going for distance and competitions it's crippling.
      I had a good year in 2016 with multiple XC journeys and soaring flights galore. I had a hat-trick XC streak from Ascutney to Morningside 3 for 3 and in addition to that I was informed that I set a new female XC record for the region. My shoulder surgery that fall changed everything, I didn't trust my body. 2017 was my recovery season, until I crashed and hurt myself again. Then 2018 turned into recovery season: Part 2 for both physical and mental. I'm still not sure how things were processed in my brain, but it went downhill as the year went by and I still don't know why. I did my first comp in 18 years down in Florida and placed fairly well (not top 10 like I wanted, but 13th is close enough I guess). Once back in New England for spring conditions I began to get nervous. I flew here and there, but only when it was benign conditions and dead calm. Nothing happened that should've caused my mind to revert back to my 2001-2005 flying mindset, yet there it was. I was leaving thermals with Max and Ilya to get back directly over the park because in my mind I wasn't going to make the field. Which, in hindsight, was ridiculous. Half of the time we were at 6,000'+ and Morningside wasn't more than a few miles away, but in my head I wasn't going to penetrate back upwind and land short - an issue stemming from my old crash. I wanted to go XC, but wasn't really towing up in conditions that would allow me to do so. I wouldn't get on the cart if the leaves were rustling at all.
     It came to a head when I ended up having a breakdown in the taxiway. I was all set up to go, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The conditions weren't crazy, just a typical mid-day thermally tow. I had done a few hundred of these by now. Everything came down on me and I was questioning what I was doing. I bawled my eyes out to Stacy and finally just blurted out 'I feel like I'm going to die every time I fly.' and didn't realize until that moment that it had become that bad, and it was unfounded. There was no reason for it. Yes hang gliding is dangerous to a point, but the risks are mitigated with experience and proficiency. Both of which I have plenty of. I have only had two bad crashes in the course of 12 total seasons which is impressive considering the flying and XC I've accomplished. Both were pilot error and preventable. Then as soon as that hit me, it went away and I was back to normal a month later. I was up on trashy days scratching for thermals and flying with Max and Ilya again like it never happened.. In hindsight I think it was just a self preservation thing kicking in.
    I recently had an urge to join the Nationals. It only took a week and I've snapped out of it. I've taken a step back and before I decide to enter another comp I want to make sure the 'have fun' and 'win' battle is far more balanced out. I had fun at the Green Swamp this past spring but it was stressful and I only placed 13th, granted it was out of about 50 pilots... but I still feel like I failed and I'm still hard on myself about it.
    I've competed my entire life since childhood because I'm the youngest out of 3. It's a blessing and a curse that's pushed me to accomplish a lot of things. I've competed snowboarding, weightlifting, motorcycle racing.. but it makes me never satisfied with being decent, I have always tried to be the best and it has honestly taken away from the overall experience of the things I've done.


    
I need to set my sights back to two things that I had already started working on:

• I want to extend my XC record
• I want to land on the beach. 

Hampton Beach is an almost-impossible 100 mile task, and the tiny amount of pilots that have accomplished this feat over the last few decades is a glaring tribute to the difficulty. Being the first female to fly to the coast would be the icing on the cake, and doing it in a kingposted glider will definitely make it interesting, but not impossible. It's been done in worse gliders from the past. Here's the list of the only pilots who have made it to the beach..


VHGA Sand Men:

1. Nelson Howe
2. Randy Adams
3. Teddy Hasenfus
4. Jon Szarek
5. Steve Arndt
6. Richie Laport
7. Timmy Donovan
8. Jeff Bernard
9. John Arrison
10. Dennis Cavagnro
11. Tom Lanning
12. Greg Hanlon
13. Tim Hoopes
14. Dan McGonagle
15. Randy Brown

Those goals, to me, are a lot more reasonable. I'm only competing with myself (and Ilya and Max a little bit.. :)  But these goals will hopefully be lower key, take the stress off, and help me enjoy the journey a little more.

The Pressure..

This past weekend was a H pressure party. I shouldn't complain with the way this season has panned out though. At least it wasn't raining for once..


The system caused a blue hole as predicted. We ended up with storms developing off to the West over Rutland, about 30 miles away. Ilya and Max took tows up but weren't able to find anything worth writing home about. I hopped in line anyway to take my sledder like a man. Caci had gone up before me and was working something off to the NE of the park, the only game in town it seemed. I towed up, found nothing off to the West, and made a dash for the terrain over the park near where he was. Nick flew past me and was on his way to land, it seemed it was shutting down and I was bumming for being just a few minutes too late.


I was down to about 400' over the hill when I caught a puff of zero - I'll take it. I started circling and it started getting a little better, up to about 50fpm. I was trying to stay as flat as possible but trying to turn tight enough to keep in it. Then a hawk out climbing me about 100' to the East caught my eye. I adjusted to where he was and got into 200fpm.. Thank you, bird! He and I shared the thermal and as we climbed out we got into 500fpm! We were then joined by a turkey vulture shortly before the thermal ended up crapping out on us. With the feathered assist I ended up gaining about 1,300' and came in to have a perfect landing. Always a plus!


Sunday was a repeat day. H pressure, predicted to be blue, light winds. Ilya and I dissected the weather predictions and set on a 3pm launch time to be when there would be lift, if there was any at all. Clouds ended up forming all around us, they looked decent but tattered and I was worried it was just from moisture from the night before rather than actual lift. We got on the carts, Ilya, myself, and Jeff and I made a comment about feeling like we were too early. Ilya would later agree that we should've waited.

Takeoff with hubby assist (Photo by Max Kotchouro)

We ended up back on the ground while Jeff remained up so we went for relights, mine being later than Ilya's. As I was towing up noticed they were getting low. I got dropped NE of the park and made a dash for a cloud that was about 500 higher than me, there was absolutely nothing under or near it. Time to hunt.. Jeff was still scratching low near Calavant Hill so I headed that way and found a scrappy 0-50fpm. I began working it.. but he was getting bigger. I clover leafed around to see where his core was and found 600fpm down all around.. I stayed with what I had. He never got all the way up to me and went off to land. I was getting low again so I headed for more terrain over Morningside. I was over the hill and again had a 0-50fpm that I started working. I managed to scratch out a 33 minute flight from it. This weekend was a test of patience and thermal-sniffing, which is good to have once in awhile.

Mt.Washington

The tallest mountain in the northeast and the bucket-list flying site for many pilots.



We made the call late Thursday evening to give it a go. The cloud cover was a concern and the direction was supposed to swing East to straight South after 12pm but it was either attempt to fly The Beast or sit at work all day. A no brainer.


Ilya and I drove up together from my house and met the gang at the base at 9am. 5 HG pilots, 4 PG pilots, and 3 drivers. It was still early, but conditions on the ground were calm as could be - just like last year. We did an LZ walk and planted a streamer, then ventured up the 8 mile road to the summit.

It wasn't looking too promising. There was a blanket of clouds as far as we could see, as predicted. I was setting up anyways. Ladies first! I called dibs to run off since I didn't launch last year, Ilya was going second. Gottling and Curtis had the second round (there's only room for two gliders at a time in the setup area) and Arrison was using a parking lot and different launch area a few hundred feet down the auto road from us along with the PG pilots.

Mt.Washington 'setup area' - the only place where there's no boulders. (Photo by Sam Washburn)

Ilya and I were set up on the slope and ready to go around 11am, but we couldn't launch yet. The valley was completely socked in. You can't see the LZ on a clear day from the launch area, but flying through a cloud blanket over this terrain wasn't on the menu. We saw some pockets of clearing and just when we were talking about getting ready to go we ended up seeing Eric and Lanning launch their PGs. I radioed to Tom asking if the clouds were across the entire valley- they weren't. Once you flew out a bit you could see to the LZ on the other side. Good enough for me! My harness was already hooked into the glider so I climbed in, swung it around, and waited for an East cycle. I was surprisingly calm considering what I was about to do. Bill and Ilya were on my wings and Curtis on my keel. It felt like he was pushing forward on me but he wasn't touching the glider at all. The mountain is known to blow over the back when the sun heats it up, not good. I felt a breeze in my face, wings level.. LATERRRR! And I was off..

 The air was buttery smooth. I had a quick burble in front of launch but it was punchy and I didn't have the gonads to turn that close to the boulder fields so I ventured out along the ridge towards the LZ. The view was incredible, it looks like another planet up there. Once I started heading up the ridge towards the landing area there was a cliff that dropped away with a waterfall and then it's nothing but trees and wilderness. It's deceiving, it seemed like a 12:1 glide and I started getting nervous, so I pulled VG and got as small as I could.

As Tom stated, the clouds ended and revealed the landing area. I ended up coming in at a couple thousand feet over -way higher than I expected- so I puttered around for a bit and did a few turns in what I perceived to be lift using the horizon as a gauge since my 6030 batteries died on launch. My headset wasn't working so I decided to forego comms, and in doing so I was blissfully ignorant of Tom trying to radio what was happening on the ground until I took a good look at the visitor center flags and the surface of the pond -it was cranking. Not at all like last year's L&V conditions. I had some idea that it would be interesting, and I was proven correct.


It was a roller coaster from about 1,500' all the way to the deck. But not the 'woohoo hands up!' roller coaster.. more like 'I just puked cotton candy and got shat on by a seagull'. I was flying as fast as I could and was still getting chucked. I wrestled it down into my S turns, got turned downwind, fought it back upwind onto final into the slot. It was trashy and there was a cycle ripping off when I was coming in, not much I could do about it except ride the bull. I slack lined half a dozen times, the last one so hard it flipped my visor and vario down but as soon as I came into ground effect it stopped. Wait for it.. wait for it.. BAM! Perfect no stepper! WOOHOO! I was pretty damn proud of myself. That was the most challenging landing I've had to fight through - I now fully appreciate why that is a H4/P4 site.


I wrestled it over to the breakdown area where Tom and Eric were packing their PGs up. Ilya was coming in to right behind me and luckily had his radio on so Tom gave him a heads up on the conditions. He fought through the crap and had an excellent landing with Gallagher right behind him in his PG. Then Arrison, Curtis, and Bill bringing up the rear not long after that. Everyone handled the conditions like a bunch of old pros.

Ilya and Gallagher on the ground. Happy boys!

Lanning and Eric packing it in.

It was then crispy high fives all around followed by yummy food and great convos in Gorham, NH.
Almost a year to the day from the 2017 trip, but I flew her this time!




His and Hers at the base of The Beast.

Back in the saddle

This weekend I was finally able to shake my flying demons that I've had since last year. I was trying to heal and feel out my new shoulder the whole season of '17 and had the setback of my crash and re-injuring it to the point where it needs surgery yet again. I had the pressure of the competition to get me in the air at the Green Swamp and I honestly didn't give flying a second thought because.. Florida. But returning to New England in Spring conditions unsettled me and I began questioning everything I have been working for and why I was still flying. The people I spoke with who have twice the time under a wing as me told me that every pilot goes through this phase at one time or another in their flying career which made me feel a little better about it. Injuries and surgeries are humbling reminders that we don't bounce when we hit the ground. And my crash at Yamaska in '17 was eye opening at how wrong shit can go even when landing in what should be a routine field in routine conditions.

The FunMobile

This weekend was turning out to be H pressure, low wind speed, and HOT. Almost one of those times where it's actually too hot to fly and we all migrate to the local swimming hole instead.. almost.

I set up Friday afternoon and waited around until after 6pm when it started to glass off. Ilya went up and had a decent flight, landed, and said he assumed I wasn't going to go up. I had replaced my second-ever dented downtube without an adult present and it wasn't until this weekend I realized it was nagging in the back of my mind whether I'd done it properly. I asked Ilya to look, he confirmed it was fine, and I was totally liberated. I threw my harness on without a second thought and went for a tow. It was glassed off with some lift still burbling off the hill and zero wind on the ground. I had no worries, I towed up sans vario and comms, got a 25 minute flight, and had a perfect landing in no wind. I felt 50% better.

Saturday was a repeat, but earlier in the day. I towed up, flew around, and landed next to the rings in the LZ across the street. My initial intention was land next to the taxiway but that plan was thwarted when I hit heavy sink and saw a car coming  down the road that was going to be intersecting uncomfortably close to where I was going to be rounding out. Things happen, flight plans change. It resulted in a no-step landing next to the rings despite the last minute evasive maneuver back towards the park. I was 75% there..

Sunday was the day. Ilya and I spent the morning as ground crew and moral support for Max while he tried to fine tune his Combat landings, and while doing so I began seeing Cues forming over Ascutney and drifting our direction. It was only about 10 in the morning, so that was promising. XC Skies was predicting a late day (4-5pm) but after we helped Max I told Ilya I was going to set up and pointed out the clouds, so he did the same.


Combat Max and Ilya

Around noon they were over us. Ilya launched around 1:30pm and stuck, he was working some broken lift and getting up over the SE end of the park. I tromped my ass out onto the runway after, and it was the calmest I've been pre-flight since before surgery. I laid in the cart and BOOM, tailwind. After a few minutes it still hadn't switched back, so I walked back to the taxiway and stated I was going to wait it out. Within moments of my harness coming off it went back to North again and full grump mode hit. Max had bagged the Combat and set his Sport 2 up, so he hopped on the cart and towed up. Not one to be outdone, I got back on the cart.. again. It stayed North for me this time.


Nick - tow pilot extraordinaire

Nick had dropped Max off over the river to the West and he went on glide all the way back to the park without hitting a single pluff. I waited for him to land, then I launched. I got dropped off over the factories and I spent about 10 minutes working a sad little 0-10fpm to maintain while Ilya was over the hill cranking in stronger lift. I scratched up and hung around 2,700' and decided to head his way since nothing seemed to be building in my area. It paid off, I got into a scrappy 150fpm over Morningside that required being up on the wingtip to stay in but turned into 4-500fpm up to 4,700ft. Max had a relight and came over to join and, as Max always does, quickly out climbed me and joined Ilya about 1k over me. Asel towed up and climbed up with us. The little whipper snapper even got above me for a minute!

I was content. I was aggressive, cranking and banking, sniffing out thermals, leaving and finding new climbs and had absolutely zero worries about any aspect of the flight - I was back 100%.

Thermaling with Ilya

After 1:20 of flying I decided I had enough and flew over the valley to land. I anticipated lift over the cornfield and turned onto final further back than normal. I caught the tail end of the corn lifting off and ended up about 100' short but it was a perfect no-step landing. Ilya had the flight of the day with 4 hours and 22 minutes! I got to fly with my boys again, it was a good day.

Happy girl!

Taj MaHen - Complete

I wasn't able to go flying this weekend due to my duties of being on call for work. A lot got done this weekend- located my septic buried 5' down and nowhere near where the as-builts showed (thanks prior homeowners), trenched about 100 linear feet for new drainage around/under my house, removed an 80 year old red oak stump in my back yard, and finished the coop. FINALLY.
6 weeks. It's taken that long for me to complete this chicken coop, which is probably 5 weeks more than any sane person would've probably spent on it. But I'm meticulous, and I don't want my girls living in a slum.

The exterior is completed, including the eaves being boxed (not pictured). Aside from trimming the flappy tar paper on the roof, it's done.

They also have their new fortress pen so I can let them out to play with peace of mind.

The girls and I are happy. For different reasons I'm sure. They get to go outside and play, I get to not work on this freakin coop every single day after work anymore.

Hopefully the posts to follow will be less poultry and more pilot.

The Taj MaHen

My little nuggets are growing up fast. It's been about a month since I began making their coop, and I'm happy to say that, aside from the vinyl siding and outdoor pen, it's done!

 

I framed out each wall individually and carried them out to the base in the backyard to install. Amazingly, everything fit.
I then notched and installed the 2x6 rafters and put the tar roll and tin on the roof first first to protect from rain.



 

With Ilya's help, we installed the 6x3' back window so the girls can have tons of natural light and see the sunrises. He insulated the coop while I hammered the boards on the outside and even built the entire nest box since I was at a loss on how to do so. We then tyveked the coop to weatherproof it.

 

Hubby's insulation and nest box

 

(The metal roof sticking out was just a temporary shelter for Ilya so he could work on the nest box since it had started raining..)

I spent another week ply wooding the inside walls, installing 1/2" metal mesh to the inside of the windows and vent to keep predators out, installed the perches and chicken walk, and put the lip and divider on the nest box.

 

Then, on 6/7... the big day came. EVICTION TIME!!!

The girls are about 4 weeks old now, and they had quickly outgrown their little brooding box. They were starting to squabble with each other more and more, the tension was palpable. 

They got bucket-rides out to their little outside pen, and they probably thought this was just another ride to the pen for recess.. Little did they know this was their last bucket ride to adulthood.. or chickenhood.

Bucket O' Nuggets

 

Their unleashing into the new coop was met with much flapping around and rejoicing. They spent a good half hour exploring everything and are much happier now. And momma is too, it took me an hour to clean the dust and fuzzies out of the porch, and it'll probably smell like a barnyard for another couple of weeks.. Totally worth it.

Freedom!